Saturday, October 27, 2018

The killer struck in classic mob style: : one bullet to the head and a second shot as the coup de grace.
An elderly man with ties to organized crime got shot twice in the
back of the head in a suspected wiseguy rubout in Brooklyn on Friday
afternoon, police sources told The Post.
They said Vincent Zito, 77, died inside his Sheepshead Bay home on Emmons Avenue near Batchelder Street at about 3:15 p.m.
Zito’s grandson, who lives in the house, came home from school and
found his grandfather’s body lying face up in the living room with a
handgun next to him, according to a handyman who worked for the victim.
Cops said a pistol was recovered at the scene.
Howard Stewart, 43, said he came to the house Saturday morning to
paint the grandson’s room — and was shocked when a cop answered the
boy’s door.
Zito’s son Joe then broke the news.
“I said, ‘Joe what happened?’” Stewart told The Post. “He started
shaking his head. I said, ‘What happened?’ He said he got two shots in
the head.”
Police said there was no sign of a forced entry.
Stewart speculated that the killer must have been someone Zito knew.
“Two shots to the head? Man, it’s a setup,” he said. “There was no break-in. It’s someone he knew.”
Though police believe there is a Mafia connection to the hit, it’s
unclear with what family Zito might have been affiliated, sources said.
Zito had an older brother, Anthony Zito, 82, who has ties to the
Lucchese clan and was jailed in 1971 for extortion, according to a
published report.
Zito himself was arrested for loan sharking in the past, it said.
Still, Stewart remembered Zito as a kind-hearted old man known as “Pop” to his family.
“He would give you everything,” Stewart said. “He would give you the
shirt off his back. I don’t know why someone would want to hurt him.”
But not everyone shared the admiration.
A neighbor remembered him as a “snake,” who sold him a can of
gasoline for $100 while the man was trying to help clear water during
Hurricane Sandy. .
“I was so mad at him,” said the neighbor, who asked not to be named.
“I was pumping water for all the neighborhood. He sold me gas, $100 [for
a gallon].”
The man said Zito was known in the neighborhood as a schemer. “He is not a good guy,” the neighbor said.
Stewart added that he thinks Zito’s home-security system will help cops track down the shooter.
“There are two cameras outside and one inside, so they might see who
knocked on the door,” he said. “They might capture something.”
The cameras on the house were visible from the street on Saturday,
with one positioned so that it would capture footage of anyone entering
or leaving the front of the house.
A second camera was trained on a door at the back of the house.
There’s also an ADT alarm system sticker at the bottom of the front door.